Monday, 1 January 2018

Top 12 Books of 2017!

Hello, welcome back! Wow, that was a long break. My life has been crazy this year and I haven't been motivated or had the energy to make posts but I've missed it so much. I had to come back before the end of the year because I love wrapping up my favourite and least favourite books of the year. I decided to start off with my favourites this time around because I've been much more critical with the books I read this year. I've been very hesitant to give out 5 star ratings and the majority of the books I read this year were either 2 or 3 stars so you know I absolutely loved the ones on this list. Without further ado, in no particular order, here are my favourite books of the year! (I'll leave a link to my goodreads review for each book if you want to know more of my thoughts.)

1. Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
This was the first book I read this year and I flew through the whole thing on New Year's Day because I couldn't put it down. I absolutely love these books. The world is so mysterious and cool and the characters are hilarious and kick-butt! Even despite the fact that this is told through a collection of files and not a direct narration from the characters, I've never felt a problem connecting with each of them and following along with their stories. I loved this book so much and can't wait for the next one. It's definitely one of my all time favourite series.

2. The Winner's Curse series by Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse, The Winner's Crime, The Winner's Kiss)
I marathon read this series because it was so interesting and I read the first chapter on a whim and then couldn't stop. I also read these books at the same time I was learning about ancient Rome in school so a lot of the battle techniques were things I was actually learning about so I found that fun and made my reading experience that much more real to me. The writing in these books is phenomenal and I absolutely love the characters; how they think, interact, everything!! I highly recommend these books. I couldn't decide between them because I surprisingly loved each of them equally!

3. The Girl of Fire and Thorns series by Rae Carson (The Girl of Fire and Thorns, The Crown of Embers, The Bitter Kingdom)
I picked up this series because I knew it was a well-loved political fantasy series and after the Winner's series, I was looking for some more books from that genre. This didn't disappoint at all! To this day and for the rest of my life, I will always love Hector. Elisa was just such a realistic character and I loved how she was written. She had some of the best character development I've ever read about and again, the writing in this series was so surprisingly good, I loved every single book in this series and there wasn't one I felt was boring.

4. Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri ManiscalcoAfter hearing so many good things about this book, I decided to pick it up and give it a chance. Surprise! I loved it. Audrey Rose was such a brilliant and strong female character. I loved reading about her solving mysteries. Her banter with Thomas was also hilarious. The writing was so atmospheric and beautiful and while it was a slow read that takes a bit getting used to, it was worth it and I loved it so much. I can't wait to dive into the sequel; hopefully I love it as much as this one!

5. Heartless by Marissa MeyerI picked this up on a whim because I told myself I couldn't read any of Meyer's other books until I finished the Lunar Chronicles, but I'm clearly weak and have no self-control. The writing in hear was shocker beautiful. Meyer did a great job of giving Catherine a compelling backstory and the writing was so wild and weird it felt like Wonderland. I could vividly picture everything that happened in this book and I loved every bit of it. I want her to write an infinite amount of fairy-tale retellings and villain origin stories please.

6. Caraval by Stephanie GarberI read this immediately after coming back from a two week vacation with my family and I hadn't been in the mood to read anything for two weeks so I gobbled this book up. Again, the writing was so atmospheric and beautiful and I absolutely loved the whole mystery behind Caraval. The writing was brilliant and there were so many twists I found really enjoyable. The whole theme of deception and not knowing who to trust was really well done in my opinion and I can't wait to read the next one when it comes out!

7. Wolf by Wolf by Ryan GraudinThis book absolutely blew me away. The writing was beautiful, the characters were amazing, the plotting was next level. Everything was perfect. It made me cry. Very few books made me cry this year but this book, and it's sequel, both made me sob. They were just so well written!!! I don't have too much to say about these books, but they were awesome and please read them to experience the preciousness and awesomeness that is Yael.

8. Worlds of Ink and Shadow by Lena CoakleyAlright, this book was a total wild card. I'd never heard of it before, I just picked it up randomly from my library one day because the synopsis sounded interesting. It ended up blowing me away. It was about something I'd always wanted to read: people who write stories and then can jump into the story as the creator and change things as they go along. I loved movies like this as a kid but I'd never found a book that encompassed it as perfectly as I pictured it. Until this book. It was dark, mysterious, creepy, but so so fun. I highly recommend this. It also made me want to read all the Bronte sibling's works.

9. Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson
I wanted to read this book since before it came out because it sounded super dark and interesting and that was exactly what it was. I don't want to say too much because I'm afraid of spoiling it but if you want to be mislead by a mystery book in the best possible way, please pick this up. I gasped out loud multiple times and lost my chill because of the twists that happened. It was so well written and completely unpredictable to me and I really enjoyed it. I can't wait for this author to write more in the future.

10. And I Darken by Kiersten WhiteI'd been hearing things about this book when it first came out but I never really had an interest in it. Then I found it in the bargain section one day at Chapters and decided to give it a shot. It completely blew me away. The writing was very mature for YA and it dealt with a lot of dark things and because of that, it was a bit of a slower read. However, I liked that it was slow because it developed a lot of important things and really built up the world for me. It was super rich in history and again, I could vividly picture everything. I absolutely loved this book. The sequel, I found to be a little boring and disappointing so that's why it didn't make the list, but this first one was absolute gold and I highly recommend it.

11. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh BardugoMy babies were back and this book broke my heart I will never be the same. There was one point in this book where I legitimately went through the five stages of grief because someone died and I couldn't accept it. Even though I was spoiled, I still went through this book thinking it was wrong and couldn't be true but it was and it destroyed my heart. This duology was incredibly well written and I can't wait to read more of Bardugo's other books.

12. Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
What a coincidence. My very first and very last reads of the year made this list. This book completely surprised me. I didn't like the last couple of Clare books I read too much so I went into this with pretty low expectations and they were completely blown out of the waterthis book was so good!! I loved the writing, the characters, the plot, the twists, everything!!! Honestly, the characters are seriously competing with the characters from the Infernal Devices for my heart, I loved them that much. I'm currently reading Lord of Shadows and I can't contain my excitement. I'm so happy I read this.

Honourable Mentions: Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh, Turtles all the Way Down by John Green, A Court of Wings and Ruin (I'm just as shocked as you are that this didn't make my Top list) by Sarah J. Maas, Geekerella by Ashley Poston.

Thank you so much for reading! Hopefully I'll be able to post more often this year because I really have missed it. I had a great reading year in 2017 and hopefully 2018 will be just as good. Look out for my most disappointing reads coming soon!